Growth fears spell dour week for Wall Street

Any chance of US markets enjoying a rally this week were torpedoed by warnings about weaker US growth and a sweeping indictment of the world's largest banks, AFP reports.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the five days down close to one percent, after slumping heavily on Thursday amid a gloomier outlook from the Federal Reserve and Moody's downgrades of 15 of the world's largest banks.

The Dow was down 251 points on Thursday after the US central bank sharply revised down 2012 growth projections to between 1.9 and 2.4 percent, a half-percent cut.

Markets shrugged as the Fed announced a moderate renewal of its Twist stimulus program of bond swaps which are designed to lower long-term interest rates.

The central bank will continue to switch short-term US bonds for those dated between six and 30 years. In total the program will be worth around $267 billion.

Sentiment was also rocked on Thursday ahead of the widely expected Moody's downgrade of the credit ratings of 15 major global financial firms including Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC and Deutsche Bank

"All of the banks affected by today's actions have significant exposure to the volatility and risk of outsized losses inherent to capital markets activities," said Greg Bauer, Moody's global banking manager.

Goldman Sachs ended the week down 2.1 percent while Citi and Morgan Stanley were down 1.1 percent.